my grandfather (god rest his soul) lived through

Posted on: May 3, 2020 at 10:29:53 CT

the depression and literally sold his shirt for a sandwich before he and his brother jumped a train to head west in hopes of finding employment. He told me of riding on the tops of the train with hundreds of other people, many of them families with small children who he said would cry through the night b/c they were all starving. when the train would slow down and they were near farmers' fields he said all the men would jump off and run into the fields and snatch whatever produce they could find and run and jump back on the train. He said he was dirty and starving and although the "plan" was to get to California he only made it as far as New Mexico before he was arrested by the railroad police. He had no money, his clothes were in tatters, and he was starving to death. He didn't really know what they were going to do in California anyway so they turned around and hobo'd it back to Missouri. They lived off fishing the Missouri River, growing a small amount of corn and hunting.

long story short I can assure you that were my grandfather alive today he would not want anyone else to suffer in general or suffer the indignity of not having a job and all of the mental and physical repercussions that go along with that, in order to save himself.

Edited by blake1771 at 11:09:34 on 05/03/20